


Good Enough for Someone

by UlternateFreak



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bad Parenting, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Canon Rewrite, Friendship/Love, Harley Keener & Peter Parker Friendship, Harley Keener Needs a Hug, Hurt Harley Keener, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, Mother-Son Relationship, Parent Tony Stark, Percy Jackson References, Possible Character Death, Protective Peter Parker, Sad and Happy, Self-Doubt, Sexuality Crisis, Tony Stark Acting as Harley Keener's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:15:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29008899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UlternateFreak/pseuds/UlternateFreak
Summary: "I'm not a bad, kid, Pete-" Harley says, eyes returning back to the earth. Seeing not the life that had continued to flourish there but the mere absence of what hadn't."No one ever said you were-" Peter says."Momma did - she told me I was. Which made me sometimes think that without her...I could actually make somethin' of myself."-Endgame Canon Divergence-In which Peter Parker survives the Snap, and befriends Tony's other 'adopted' - now orphaned - son, Harley Keener.Inspired by 'Good Kid - The Lightning Thief (The Percy Jackson Musical)'.
Relationships: Harley Keener & Harley Keener's Mother, Harley Keener & Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Harley Keener/Peter Parker
Kudos: 60





	Good Enough for Someone

**Author's Note:**

> Another idea that had come to me while working on a separate story.  
> Wrote it late last night - until 2 am - and corrected and expanded it this morning.  
> Enjoy.

It's been six months and six days.

The people count them, the planet feels them, and Peter Parker watches as Harley Keener breaks from them.

Now, he hasn't exactly known the other since day one of the Snap. Or even from the life before then.

He, the other, had only shown a few weeks after Peter and Tony's return from the Titan planet.

Endlessly, they, themselves, had floated about in a spacecraft left behind by Quill and his crew - lost in the cosmos for a scarce week or so - unsure of who was actually left, and who had been dusted into oblivion.

Luckily, a savior had been sent to search the stars - to reunite them with a lost world unable to cope with what the fates had bestowed upon them.

Harley had thusly turned up a month after that. With Tony - relieved. Everyone else - confused, and curious, about the young man with the shattered eyes and the loose twang of a southern accent.

"Knew this day would come," Ms. Romanov had commented at the time, her spot at the monitor feeding the live footage from the entryway of the Compound, "which kid is this, Tony? Affair 54 or 92?"

Harley, much like everyone else, had lost his family. The same ol'story - with his mother and sister being taken from him before his very eyes. The guilt at having been spared, apparent and burdened to the point of yearning for some other power to undo or reverse the cards. Even if only to bring them back, in turn sealing his own fate in their place.

"Vanished into the air," he'd described it some time after, all the while clutching Tony as one would a life preserver, "I didn't have anywhere else to go-"

By the aforementioned, six months and six days, Harley had become a permanent resident at the Avengers Compound. Much like Peter had. The name, and building, in itself a cruel joke that proved unfunny to even those once accustomed to the innovation and competence of dark humor.

"Avenge," Harley had once mused to Peter, stalling in steps before the massive logo that had been stamped onto the west side of the building, "that's what they do, huh? All the best work happens after the fact-"

"What?"

"They ain't the Prevengers," he had continued, eyes returning back to the earth. Seeing not the life that had continued to flourish there but the mere absence of what hadn't.

And despite the offhanded comment being linked to Peter himself, in theory - he had only nodded along, in stride with the boy mulling about the grounds. Unsure in his steps, and uncertain into which direction he was actually heading.

"There's nothin' left to do," he then spoke again, "- zero, zip - nada-"

If not for the original theory having already been disproven, those words alone would have had convinced Peter of Harley's lineage. If he wasn't Tony's biological son, then surely - somehow - the man had synthetically created him, like Vision, or crafted him by thought alone, like Jesus.

"Here you are," Peter announces with a shrugged sort of satisfaction-al sigh. The metal access door to the roof swinging shut behind him. "I've been looking everywhere for you-"

"That's a first," Harley says to him, chuckling faintly himself - body and face turned away, then - spoken softer this time, "are ya okay-?"

"I'm fine," Peter answers - his own shrug easily apparent, "just making sure that you're okay-"

Another chuckle.

"What?" He asks. Feet having already carried him across the expanse of roof. "What is it - what's so funny?" He then kneels down, swooping into a graceful dip before coming to a seat besides the other. Their feet mutually hanging over the edge of the building, where glass windows meet just below the tips of their soles.

"You're just a man of firsts is all," Harley says.

"Meaning what exactly?"

"I just nearly killed you - and you're wonderin' if I'm fine-"

"I'm okay," he repeats, "it was an accident-"

"Ya shouldn't care if I'm okay though - nobody usually does anyway-"

"Harley-"

"And I don't mean that in a pathetic way," he states matter of fact-ly, giving into a loose kick of his feet, "look, ya don't know - 'cause I never told ya - but in Rosehill, before everythin'. No one cared. Not even Momma at times - not until I did somethin' bad - and only because she didn't have time to care otherwise. She just worked and worked. To provide food - to give us a home... And what I did? It didn't matter. But ya blow up the neighbors barn once, and it's a right turn into a good ol'smackin' - 'never play with rockets' she'd say, and, 'ya heads in the clouds - you're just a dreamer, Har - that's why ya keep gettin' into trouble.'" He paused, kicks subsiding, as he then decided to toss his head back - arms outstretched behind him to properly leverage and distribute his weight. "I had sometimes wished I would show her - how I'd get to the big city with my dreams, and my _rockets_ , and make somethin' of myself - and look, here I am. I made it, but... Momma ain't here, Pete. I don't even know if she'd be in the heavens - able to look down on us."  
  
Then- "Death would be kinder," he decides, pause brief - but needed in order to keep hold of his otherwise shaken voice, "its much more grounded."  
  
"I get what you mean," Peter sighs himself, mirroring the same position as Harley - but going even further to completely allow himself to spread out upon the roof top. "Those memorials they're erecting - its strange, there aren't any bodies. I know that May isn't there. I get what it's for, and what it's meant to mean - but...they're not dead. They're just gone."

Harley reaches over to pat Peter's leg, his eyes still focused into the heavens - but trying for a connection.

"But - and I'm saying this just to get it, what does this have to do with blowing up the lab-?"  
  
"I'm not a bad, kid, Pete-"

"No one ever said you were-" Peter says, choosing to face the other as before. Back still pressed to white brick.

"She did," he says, "she told me I was. Which made the showin' her all the more important. Which made me sometimes think that without her...I could do it."

This time, the pause is longer - the airs about him shifting as he then collapses onto Peter's level. "Its terrible, I know...-"

  
  
"We all think that way at times, Harley - you can't-"

"I thought it one too many times," he says, "one too many for someone that I love. Someone who gave me everythin'. Someone who let me tinker with my things and use the garage - even with all the lectures. And, ya know, I was a smart-ass about it too - about everythin'. She'd try to fix that just as well - 'just try to fit in,' she'd say, 'act your age - stop with your nonsense,' but I needed to be clever, and smarter. So I got made fun of - because 'Harley Keener is just a dreamer - and no one wants to be friends with a wiener'.

"That's-" Peter starts - his brows drawn together in quizzical disdain-

"Stupid," Harley finishes with a rough-sounding laugh, "it is-"

Peter agrees.

"But it hurts once everyone is sayin' it. Even more, when you know Mommas heard it - and might even think it - 'I'm proud of your mind, but sometimes I'd wish-'," he stops again, though it's only long enough for his hands to rub up against his sides - his pinky finger making contact with Peter's own hand. And choosing, this time, to remain there. "-she never did finish her sentence. But I know what she had wished for. And it was in contrast of my own. So again, I didn't listen. And now...? Well, I'd wish I could hear her even if I don't want to hear it."  
  
"None of that makes you a bad kid," Peter says after a thought, the need to touch undoing him. So he gives in, and presses his palm into the others willing hand. The touch insignificant till fingers are crossing into one another. Clinging - clasping...

  
"I never stole anythin'," he begins again, seeming to be speaking aloud - but separated despite their established connection, "nor hurt anyone - it's all just been a very bad run - with nobody on my side..."

"I guess I just wish she'd come back, is what I mean. And maybe then I could be good enough. For her. ...or for someone. Anyone. Which is why I'm sorry, and why ya shouldn't be askin' me if I'm okay. And why I should just forget my dreams - and my _rockets_ \- before...before ya wise up and make me pack my bags-"

Against better judgement - be it by even further amounts of uncertainty towards the timing, or really the strain against that which Peter had always thought himself to be - he had reduced the space between them further. His body raising to hover over the blond, eyes taking him in entirely - briefly, though clearly in gravitational intent.

"What-?" Harley asks, returning to the roof - and looking to Peter. Eyes still broken - with loosely kept tears preparing for a wayward journey - but finally - truly - locked onto his own.

It's mainly been one sided up until then. Since his arrival. With Peter trailing after the other - with Peter watching and calculating, always seeking some answer that hadn't ever been asked for in the first place.

  
"Pete-?"

Though certainly, Harley had always sought him out too. Had always asked of him - for him - without ever meeting him. And even then, just as now, it had been nearly impossible not to understand it all, even when words were quaint, and never about that which remained to be what was currently held in present time.

Harley had needed him.

And Peter...

Clumsily, he had pressed himself forward - his bangs falling to sweep across his forehead - with lips aligning to the other boys mouth in an awkwardly drawn angle. Both equally chapped, though one slicked with a sudden turn of their tongue, and lapped in saliva.

It isn't by any means a deep kiss, nor is it quick. Rather, its lost somewhere in-between - much like those who were gone but not dead - with a rooted press of lips, that moves only once Harley is reciprocating. His own hands just as unsure in placement as they fall into Peter's lap. Trying not to inappropriately touch, but also trying to search for a means to hold onto to.

Finally, at what must've been the hundredth hour, they parted - both raising to properly sit up.

And Harley is just as flustered, and wired, as Peter's insides by then. His eyes ever the more human than he's ever seen them before - with a sheen of sweat residing above them, creeping alongside his hairline - where brown roots melt into blond.

He is, for all purposes, lost here in the moment - living besides him and nowhere else.

"Y-you're good," Peter says, speaking what's left of any comprehendible thought. Even as his face burns, and his throat constricts and journeys into a wayward desert. "You're good enough as you are..."

"R-reckon, if you say so," Harley says, giving into a small cough - his hand perched onto the nape of his neck. Perspiration idly found there as well. "T-then..."

He sighs, his brief smile awkward and bashful - eyes still sad, but focused in enough for Peter to bravely continue on hovering in close.

"Then it might be true."

  
  
Its been six months and seven days.  
  
The people count them, the world feels them, and Peter Parker watches as Harley Keener begins to slowly try and live for them. 


End file.
